


Houses of the Holy

by ameliaspunkcomplex



Category: Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Acid, Drugs, Established Relationship, M/M, Murder Husbands, PWP, Prompt Fill, Sex, everyone is ooc and nothing matters, tripping, tw drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:31:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5072746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliaspunkcomplex/pseuds/ameliaspunkcomplex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to popular belief, Hannibal occasionally enjoy losing control. He wants to take Will along for the ride, who, understandably, is not the hugest fan of mind-altering substances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Houses of the Holy

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I named this after the album I listened to while writing it. Nothing more appropriate for a drug fic than a bit of Zep.

“I’ve never taken you for the sort to voluntarily give up control.”

“Quite the contrary. Occasionally relenting control cements what we know to be controllable. How can we be certain that we are the authority over our environment if we don’t know what chaos looks like?”

Will smirked, a laugh escaping him in the form of a light grunt as he took care to dice the onions as finely as he’d seen Hannibal do it before. “Or,” he said, “even entropy has to happen on your terms.”

Reaching across Will to sweep potato skins into the bin, Hannibal smiled – one of the real smiles, the ones he saved for Will because only he could see them, see the glint that just touched the corners of his eyes and nothing else.

“Perhaps,” he allowed, “but you still haven’t answered my question.” He filled a pan with water and set it on the stove to build to a rolling boil, dusted his hands off on his apron, and leant against the counter awaiting a response.

“Will I do acid with you?” Will laughed incredulously but Hannibal only slightly raised an eyebrow.

“That was the question, yes.”

Smiling to himself, Will brushed the onions to one side and met the other’s gaze. “Of all the things we’ve done together-” Hannibal’s eyes flashed dark, thinking gory thoughts, most likely, “-this would have to be the strangest.”

“But no less intimate.”

He swore he saw a familiar glitter of arousal there. “Am I to add hardcore drugs to your laundry list of kinks, Hannibal?”

“It’s incredibly difficult to maintain an erection on hallucinogenics,” Hannibal said in that conversational, almost bored tone of his, “especially the first time. I’m much more attracted to the idea of losing ourselves together. Although if you enjoy the experience, I can only imagine the intensity of more physical experimentations.”

Well, the promise of future sex with Hannibal was always a deal-closer. It was unfair, really, to have that kind of power of persuasion; Will was only comforted knowing that he too could easily (and often did) exert his own kind of hypnosis over Hannibal.

He chewed at his lip as Hannibal methodically placed the spuds into the now boiling-water to soften. On one hand, his past hallucinatory experiences had been less than pleasant. On the other, Hannibal was yet to suggest something that ended badly. In fact, almost all of Hannibal’s suggestions ended well. Usually in blood or sex. Or both.

“Can I just take half?” he conceded.

Hannibal fixed him with a disapproving glare. “No. If our doses are different our experiences will be incomparable. Besides, I’ve already calculated your dose. Don’t you trust me?”

Will huffed. “You know I do.”  
  
“Is that a yes?” He drizzled oil into a frying pan and began to sauté the onions, garlic, and spices.

Damn Hannibal, Will thought. Hannibal’s plain and explicit demand of consent, in all activities, was less of out of care for Will’s boundaries, and more in self-protection. It meant that, should Will loathe the experience, he’d have no room to blame Hannibal, having enthusiastically agreed. Just because Hannibal loved Will didn’t mean the manipulative bastard switch just switched off.

“Yes, fine. I guess. Yes, Hannibal, I will trip with you.”

“Excellent.” Hannibal shook the pan once, took Will’s face in his hands, and pressed a kiss to his forehead, content with winning, as per usual. “Go and fetch some wine, dear. Once the sauce is on, dinner shouldn’t be long.”

Will sighed, shaking his head as he went to the wine cellar to grab a bottle of red.

I’ve agreed to stranger, he reasoned.

***

Dinner was a simple affair. Those were Hannibal’s words, anyway – Will thought the curry was delicious, rich and deep with masala and cardamom, potatoes fluffy and moist, chickpeas delightfully soft. Nothing Hannibal put before him wasn’t delicious. They always ate in a comfortable silence, Will enjoying the food, and Hannibal- who knows. Probably silently noting Will’s responses to his surroundings, filing away any particular reaction to a certain flavour or behavioural cue in his mental rolodex.  

Will chased his last mouthful with a sip of wine, and pushed his bowl to one side. Hannibal’s refeeding was working in coaxing his stomach to expand past black coffee and toast, but he still filled quickly. He swallowed his wine slowly, watching Hannibal eat, allowing himself to savour the roll of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, the curl of his long, delicate fingers against the cutlery, the way he savoured the bouquet of the wine under his nose. No rush. Hannibal took his time, and when his plate was clean, calmly placed his knife and fork side-by-side on the plate, lifted his wine to his nose, and met Will’s gaze coolly over the rim as he inhaled.

“What are you thinking?” he inquired softly, taking a long sip.

Will set down his empty glass, glancing at the bottle but deciding against a refill, remembering that he had agreed to take acid, and he intended to have as clear a head as possible when that happened.

“Not much.” His bouncing leg knocked the table and a drop of wine bounced from the glass to land neatly on Hannibal’s nose. “Sorry,” he said as the other wiped the drop away with his thumb, “I’m nervous.”

“You need to relax. Fear makes for an unsavoury companion in situations such as these.”

“That makes me more nervous,” Will countered. “Now I’m nervous about being nervous.”

Hannibal’s eyes smiled. “Just once, try not to overanalyse.”

“Says the psychiatrist.”

“To the criminal profiler.”

“Touché.”

There was another drawn-out silence, and then the soft scrape of chair legs against wood as Hannibal stood up. “Come,” he said, taking up the plates, “Let’s get washed up, and then we’ll take it from there.”

Will complied wordlessly, grabbing his glass and following him into the kitchen. He loaded the dishwasher while Hannibal, sleeves rolled to his elbows, filled the sink and took to the more stubborn pots and pans. Occasionally, Will eyed his tanned, strong forearms, the single lock of hair that fell across his forehead as he scrubbed, and gave small hums of content, met by the slightest of smirks. Dishwasher on and whirring, pans draining on the sideboard, Hannibal once again dried his hands on a tea-towel (refolding it neatly and tucking in over the oven handle) and regarded Will with an almost observatory gaze.

“Had any changes of heart?” he asked. Will shook his head.

“Don’t ask me that. Let’s just… get to it, before I change my mind.”

Hannibal tilted his head lovingly and offered his hand.   
  
“Okay. Upstairs.”

***

The wallpaper and furnishings became gradually deeper, darker, and more powerful the further one travelled into the more private recesses of Hannibal’s home. The warm and neutral blues and browns of his dining room and kitchen transformed into rich, almost royal reds and purples in the bedrooms (yes- plural), the art still beautiful but more violent, more Godly.

Will regarded a personal favourite in the hallway as Hannibal disappeared into a guest room where, presumably, he kept his stash of illicit drugs.

So lost in the painting, Will didn’t notice Hannibal behind him until strong arms were wrapping around his waist like pythons and a chin sat on his shoulder, whispering into his ear,

“You’re particularly fond of that one.”

“Satan Devouring His Son,” Will said.

A soft, approving hum from the other, lips pressed gently to his jaw, ghosting. “Which are you?” Hannibal murmured, “The devouring? Or the devoured?”

“I don’t think those are mutually exclusive roles,” he replied.

Hannibal registered this with nothing more than a slight tilt of the head, before straightening up and spinning Will around to face him. One of the hands left his hips and came up between them to exhibit a small bottle.

“Liquid acid?”

“Indeed. What you were expecting?”

“I don’t know. Tabs with… smiley faces, or something,” he said. A smile was returned, loving and condescending in one foul swoop.

“How terribly base,” Hannibal said, planting another kiss to Will’s nose. He was incredibly tactile tonight, as was usually when he ws excited. “Where do you want to go?”

Will shrugged. “Where would be good?”

Hannibal pretended to ponder this, as though he hadn’t planned it meticulously days in advance, and as though Will wouldn’t know that.

“The study, then. Quiet, enclosed, plenty of stimulation.”

Will stepped away and extended an arm, an after you, gesture.

***

Hannibal sat in a broad leather armchair, while Will elected to pace the perimeter of the room, running a finger along the bookshelves and the fat spines of the books themselves.

The sound of the cap being unscrewed was amplified in the little, wooden room, and Will watched as Hannibal pulled a decent amount of liquid up into the pipet, with the same professional steadiness one might have when administering paracetamol to a child. Hannibal didn’t bother asking who first? and, with a little less ceremony than Will had expected, stuck his tongue out and dropped the stuff into his mouth.

He swallowed, ran the tip of his tongue across his top lip and sharp canines, and held the bottle up to Will in a crude sort of cheers. Somewhat tentatively, Will took his cue and perched on the edge of Hannibal’s armrest.

“Here,” Hannibal said, pulling up the same amount for Will and handing him the pippet.

“Here goes nothing,” he murmured, sticking out his tongue as he’d seen Hannibal do. Surprisingly, the liquid didn’t taste of anything at all – he’d been expecting some kind of metallic tang, bitter, maybe. But it was as unremarkable as water.

He handed the bottle back. “When does it kick in?”

“Soon,” Hannibal said, “be patient.”

Will returned to his pacing, paying more attention to the individual books lining the shelves. They looked like they should be dusty, these big, leather-bound, and occasionally torn and yellowing, hardbacks. But of course nothing in Hannibal’s house was dusty.

“Have you actually read all of these?” Will asked, not turning away from the bookshelves.

“Yes.”

“Really? Even…” he pulled out a book at random, “A History of Tractors in Ukrainian?”

Hannibal chuckled. “That’s actually a fiction. It’s a good book; you’d like it.”

Will hummed to himself. “I don’t know how you fit it all in. Profound serial killer, extraordinary chef, you speak what, ten languages, draw, work out. Do you not sleep? Is that your trick?”

“You’ve pinned me, Will Graham.”

Gravitating back to Hannibal, Will continued, only half-joking, “Seriously. Are there more hours in your days? It takes me a few hours and a coffee to work up to showering.”

Hannibal wrinkled his nose. “I know. I’m forever having to coax you in there.”

“In-between reciting Dante and polishing your collection of vintage fountain pens, just when do you relax, exactly?”

“When I’m with my beloved,” Hannibal teased, grabbing Will and pulling him over the side of the armchair so he fell a crumpled mess into the other’s lap. Mischievous raven curls fell across his eyes and he blew them away indignantly.   
  
“Very funny.”

Still, Will readjusted himself slightly so he could lay comfortably, head resting in Hannibal’s lap, legs dangling over the armrest. He gazed up at Hannibal’s face, and his smile turned into a frown.

“Woah.”

“What?”

“Your face just melted,” he said, “Complete Dalí.”

The grin probably wasn’t as menacing as Will thought, but it looked like somebody had put a doll on a barbeque. Then, just as quickly, the features reassembled themselves and Will blinked.

“Weird.”

“Very much so. Would you like to do something?” Hannibal suggested, carding his fingers through Will’s mop and taking the glasses from his face, folding them neatly and placing them on a nearby coffee table. “It will keep you focused and allow you to enjoy everything more.”

“Is everything melting for you too?” he asked, ignoring the question.

“Yes dear. The door is presently warping.”

“Oh. Cool.” A pregnant silence. “What about chess?”

Hannibal smiled. “A fine idea.”

***

Chess didn’t last long. This was, apparently, because the acid that Hannibal had given them was incredibly potent-  
what could one expect; vintage wine, lean steak, pure acid  
\- and Will had suddenly realised that you could kiss literally any part of someone.

They were leant up against one of the bookcases in the far corner, having some strange half-approximation of sex. It mainly included Will intensely making out with Hannibal’s neck, his knee, his bicep, his belly, and periodically exclaiming,  
  
“Look. Anything is a mouth. It’s all erotic.”

Hannibal didn’t really respond; not that it deterred Will. They’d been kissing, and were both relatively horny, but kept getting distracted by things that seemed way more interesting than sex. Hannibal kept running his hands through Will’s hair – lovingly at first, then quickly, repeatedly, lost in the sensation of the silky strands against his hands. At one point, he was worried he’d been pulling Will’s hair out this whole time, but Will confirmed that he was still fully intact, and went back to kissing the knobbly bit of Hannibal’s ankle.

Occasionally, Will would say something strange and out of the blue, wax poetic about some nonsensical epiphany he’d just had, and Hannibal would just nod and kiss his forehead, nose, each cheek, and lips, and then go back to blissfully running his fingers through the other’s hair. And they’d fall back into contented silence.

Will found he had periodic moments of complete clearness between hallucinations, realisations, and stuff melting. In one of these oases of clarity, he realised he had almost none of his usual empathetic skills about him.

“Hannibal.”

“Mm?”

Will rested his chin on the other’s thigh and looked up at him through thick eyelashes, now used to the ceiling light’s warped dance. “I think this stuff kills my empathy. I can’t read you at all. It’s just like a switch has turned off.”

Hannibal pouted thoughtfully. “Is that good?”

“It’s definitely a rest for my mind.”

“That is good. See how well my ideas conduct themselves?” Hannibal’s face didn’t change, but Will saw the playful glint. Most people missed Hannibal’s jokes for that reason alone. He was, as Will discovered, actually incredibly sarcastic, once you learned to see past the blank, poker gaze.

“Yeah, you’re always right,” he teased back. “You’re the cleverest man in the whole world. You know better than everyone. Happy?”

“Delighted.”

Will glanced down at his hand and saw that his fingers were curling and uncurling of their own accord. “See that?” he asked.

“You’ve been doing that this whole time.”

“Hmm. It won’t stop.”

Hannibal’s larger, slender hand closed over Will’s and forced the rebellious fingers into a tight fist. “Fixed.”

Will kissed the hand over his. “Thank you, doctor.”

The ceiling light swam around his vision, changing colours and swaying like his own, personal northern lights.

“I want to see the painting again,” Will said suddenly, “like this.”  
  
Hannibal rested his on Will’s head. “Which one?”  
  
“My one.”

***  
Satan Devouring His Son (On Acid) was probably the scariest and most beautiful thing Will had ever seen. And that’s coming from the guy who fronted the investigation into the Chesapeake Ripper murders. And then dated the Chesapeake Ripper.   
  
Hannibal once again regarded the artwork from behind him, hands distractedly wandering across his stomach and chest, lost in the feeling of the silk shirt.  
  
Long fingers rubbed circles across his stomach, across the plain of flesh that was growing softer every day in Hannibal’s house. Soft with wine and meat. Will had never been a healthy weight in his life, and it was a strange feeling – not to skirt the curt edge of a hipbone when he put his boxers on – but Hannibal adored his new body. Not that he said it, but he was forever kissing and stroking at the pudgy bits, worshipping them like he worshipped everything on Will. Adoration from Hannibal felt so wrong and backwards, like receiving prayers from God. Like being called beautiful by Michaelangelo’s David. It was so incomprehensible, but all consuming; its presence so addictive and golden and full. Scary. Will discovered he had come to almost like himself, if only for the fact that he would feel sacrilegious rejecting anything that Hannibal so openly adored.

He’d stopped inhabiting his body: taking care of it as he would Hannibal’s Bentley or knife collection. When Hannibal tells you he owns you (and he never really tells you, but you know) you come to believe it. And Hannibal takes great pride in his belongings. He finds property damage unspeakably rude. It’s incredibly toxic, but at the end of the day, Will’s stopped drinking and taking so many aspirin, and eats breakfast and tries to get his two and five.

“Am I not the devourer?” the God behind him whispered, and Will thought he saw Satan’s lips move. The painting was pulsating slightly, beating like a heart. Will realised he’d never seen the pain in Satan’s eyes before - anguish glistened in his eyes like fire.

“Forced to destroy that which he loves?” Will scoffed. “That’s cliché, even for you Hannibal.”

“Isn’t that what I did to you? To Abigail?”

Will shook his head. “Look at the tears in his eyes Hannibal. You’ve never cried for the devoured.”  
  
The hands stilled. “I mourned Abigail.” Will swallowed against the fingers resting on his throat.  
  
“You mourned her like a lost limb. An extension of yourself that you were forced to discard.”

Hannibal didn’t grant him a reaction; they’d had this conversation a thousand times over. Neither walked away changed, and that was the way it would always be. Will was under no delusions that Hannibal would ever change, nor that he was saintly. But resentment has a long half-life (and it’s practically the spine of their relationship).

Will felt warm lips at his ear and neck, open-mouthed kisses against his throat, and the heat in his gut that he’d forgotten in the study roared back to life. Hannibal pressed a kiss to the corner of his jaw that had just the slightest hint of teeth, and his hands resumed their exploration, now running across his waist and hips.

“You’re changing the subject,” Will noted.

Hannibal stilled. “I can stop if you wish?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“God knows what you ever do mean, Will,” Hannibal murmured against his throat, manipulating Will a few steps forward to push him up against the wall, faced turned sideways and pushed against the velvety wallpaper, which, like the painting, seemed to have a heartbeat, pulsating ever so slightly against Will’s cheeks.

Without even realising it, Will was arching his spine to allow Hannibal’s hands room to roam, pushing his ass into the other’s groin. Usually, they didn’t kiss much – Hannibal saw it as an expression of emotion or as a methodical warm-up for sex, and Will found it wholly more intimate than sex – but Hannibal was basically French-kissing the side of Will’s neck, lapping and sucking against the slightly musky, slightly salty skin.

“I told you,” Will said- except it came out rather breathier than he’d intended, “it all feels so good.”

”Mm,” was the response he got as Hannibal caught his earlobe in his teeth and bit ever so slightly before running his tongue along the edge of the shell. Hannibal tugged Will’s shirt out from his pants and slid a hand up his torso, cool against the bare skin, rubbing along his ribs and across the expanse of his chest. Will let out an embarrassingly loud moan, and silently thanked Hannibal for residing in such a large, private home.

“Let’s uh-“, words didn’t come too easily, “bed.”

It was a good thing Will was comfortable in his masculinity, because when Hannibal was randy he had a habit of picking Will up An Officer and a Gentleman style.

Turning Will around and hoisting him up, Hannibal wasted no time in striding with apparent ease to the nearest guest room. “So strong,” Will teased, as Hannibal shoved the door open with his shoulder and threw him onto the bed. Will toed his shoes and socks off as Hannibal did the same and wrestled with the tie – his eyes, usually a reddish-brown, were the dark red of dried blood and blown. Will wasn’t sure if it was lust, the drugs, or a hallucination.

Then Hannibal was on him and they were taking their clothes off and actions started to bleed into each other and Will felt like there was an endless supply of clothes, like a magician’s cloth: never-ending. When they were down to their briefs, Hannibal started kissing his chest, and Will thought that if this felt so good, he probably wouldn’t be able to handle his cock being touched, but then Hannibal reached between them and palmed him through the cotton, and Will pushed his head back into the sheets and moaned so loudly that he had to shove his knuckles in his mouth.

“It feels like I’m coming,” he groaned, “endlessly. Christ.”

“I told you,” Hannibal replied, slipping his hand into Will’s pants and stroking his cock, which was already fully hard and heavy against his stomach.

“Christ. Wait- have you had sex on drugs before?”

“No,” Hannibal replied, mouthing at Will’s navel.

Will frowned, trying to get a coherent train of thought between the feeling of being swallowed by the sheets and the pure ecstasy that was Hannibal’s hand. “Then how do you- oh my god. You’ve wanked on acid. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever thought of.”

“Is it?” Hannibal didn’t sound like he was listening, licking from Will’s belly button to the waistband of his boxers.

“The Chesapeake Ripper, on LSD, jerking off. Freddie Lounds would have a field day with that one.”

“I’d rather she didn’t know,” Hannibal replied in that half bored, half bemused way of his, tugging Will’s boxers down his thighs and pressing his cock flat against his stomach to lick from base to head, tongue dipping over the slit.

“Christ! You definitely have to fuck me- shit.”

“Deal,” Hannibal said, before swallowing him down. Will remembered his earlier confusion at where Hannibal had ever found the time to master as many skills as he had, and added sucking cock to the list. Hannibal being Hannibal, never one to half ass anything, gave head with the same finesse and attention to detail with which he played the harpsicord. A loud groan escaped around his fist as Will felt his cock brush the back of Hannibal’s throat and involuntarily jerked his hips up.

Fingers pressed at his lips and Will took his knuckles out of his mouth to suck on them, gathering spit to drool over the long digits which left his lower lip wet when Hannibal withdrew them. He nudged Will’s thighs open and Will took the incentive to throw his knee over Hannibal’s shoulder as a finger circled his rim, rubbing spit around his hole as Hannibal hollowed out his cheeks and sucked on the head of his cock. Expletives dribbled from Will’s mouth as Hannibal pressed a finger inside, rising off of Will’s cock with an obscene pop to spit on his fingers and use a second finger to push it inside.

Hannibal went back to sucking his cock as he scissored and stretched Will open roughly, met with an unbroken string of moans and curses.

“Stop,” Will warned, “I feel like I’m gonna come. Actually I feel like I’m already coming so I don’t know if I’ll be able to warn you.”

Hannibal chuckled, pressing a wet, open-mouthed kiss to Will’s cock before withdrawing his fingers and sitting up. “There’s no lube in here,” he stated. “I’ll be back.”

Will gazed up at the ceiling waiting for Hannibal to return, lazily stroking his cock as he watched faint colours swim in front of his eyes.

It could have been ten seconds or ten minutes when Hannibal returned, chucked the tub on the bed, and crawled over Will to kiss him deeply.

“Your eyes,” Hannibal said, looking positively put-together if not for the strands of hair that had broken loose and stuck to his forehead, “They’re pitch-black. Like a wolf’s. Beautiful.”

He sat on his haunches and squeezed lube onto his hand, coating his cock – yet untouched, standing flushed against the soft, grey hairs of his abdomen – and then squeezing more onto his fingers, hooking Will’s knee back over his shoulder and pressing it inside him. Leaning over to kiss Will again, he took his fingers out and slowly guided his cock into him, pressing just the head inside. Both were panting – Hannibal with restraint, Will getting used to the sensation – and the kiss was now just a sharing of space and they breathed heavily, lips brushing against each other. Hannibal pressed in further and very slowly thrusted shallowly, drawing shaky moans out of the both of them. Will felt so incredibly tight; Hannibal found his earlier remark to be true, feeling as though he continuously on the knife’s edge of an orgasm, the nerve endings so raw and overwhelmed as they were.

When Will started to press into the thrusts, Hannibal began pushing deeper and deeper until he bottomed out and they both groaned loudly. Will wrapped both legs around Hannibal’s waist as he fucked him faster, the air filled with the sound of skin smacking against skin. Hannibal leant on one elbow and with the other hand, gripped the thigh around his waist for leverage; he would thrust quickly, shallow, and then slow down and change his angle to press against his prostate, rolling deep into Will. They fucked for what felt like an eternity, both entirely lost in the sensations; when Hannibal’s supporting arm started to shake, slick with sweat, Will pushed him over and rode him, hands splayed across his chest; when Will’s legs got tired, Hannibal pulled him down on all fours and ploughed into him from behind, gripping the headboard as Will’s hands twisted the sheets.

After what felt like forever, Will felt the familiar heat building in his groin and wrapped a hand around his cock, jerking off as Hannibal thrusted hard at an angle that bumped the right spot every time. Will actually yelled when he came all over the sheets and, exhausted, lay in his own mess while Hannibal continued to fuck him.

A while later, Will overstimulated and still moaning without break, Hannibal’s hips began to stutter and he let go of the headboard to grip Will’s shoulder with white knuckles, gasping as he shuddered once, and collapsed on Will.

Will felt come trickle down his thigh as Hannibal, panting, smothered him. It was a pleasant smothering though, like a weighted blanket. A sweaty, 180 pound blanket.

Will glanced up and saw a clock on the deep burgundy wall. “Jesus, it’s four in the morning.” He processed the information sluggishly. “That means we fucked for almost three hours. Aren’t we supposed to be old, Hannibal?”

His sweaty blanket laughed.

Later, when they’d caught their breath and managed to summon the energy for a shower, Will remembered what he was going to say earlier. Hannibal threw him a soft, white towel and he leant against the counter, drying himself.

“When I said that they’re one and the same – the devourer and the devoured,” he started as he wrapped the towel around his waist, “I was thinking of us. They aren’t… separate identities. It’s two sides of the same coin.”

He could feel Hannibal’s eyes boring into him, but his gaze remained fixed on the tiles.  
  
“That which we devour is bound to devour us?”

“From the inside. It’s fate.”  
  
A thick silence froze over like ice across a lake until Hannibal shattered it with a whispered, “Is that a threat, my love?”

He didn’t know.

“An apology. Possibly in advance.”

***

The two wandered out into the garden as the sun started to rise, illuminating the sky in a pale, lemonish glow. It looked to be a rainy day in Baltimore. Naked but for towels, they sprawled out across the little wooden bench: Hannibal, sat wide-legged and Will laying on his lap, all thoughts of devouring forgotten (for now, at least).

The acid was finally starting to wear off after a long ten or so hours, and Will found that except for the odd pulsation, everything had pretty much stopped melting. He still felt somewhat wired – and yet, fatigue ebbed under the surface, quiet but familiar.

Against his better judgement, Will was thinking about work, and the administrative car-crash he’d have to return to tomorrow. Jack had been pulled up on some shady documentation, so Will had to help him go through stacks of old files, in-between lectures and a possible new case. He was pretty sure they had receptionists for these kinds of things, but then again, Jack had made his role at the bureau vague on purpose: it meant he never knew if what he was doing was in his job description, if his hours were too long, if his pay was too meagre. Hannibal had asked Will’s blessing to murder Jack Crawford a few times when he’d come home one or four hours late, looking positively zombified. Will just as pleasantly denied his request, despite occasionally feeling as though Jack being dead would make his life at least fifty percent easier.

Even just thinking about it made him tired.

“I want coffee but I don’t want to get up,” he said with a sigh.

Hannibal was watching a young finch at the trunk of a nearby cedar tree struggle to fly to its parents on a low-sitting branch; both endeared and overwhelmed with the urge to snap the weakness from its neck.

“In a moment,” he murmured, watching the small thing flail helplessly, “Enjoy this. Listen to the stillness. It’s as though there’s nobody in the world but us.”

Will wanted to say that he always felt like that, like they were the only people in the world; or at least the only people that mattered and knew and saw. But he didn’t. He was too tired for more philosophical conversation. Instead, he turned his head and rubbed his cheek against Hannibal’s thigh. Hannibal tore himself away from the bird’s torment and gazed down upon Will. Grey morning light outlined his profile like a halo. He had always thought Will had a particularly regal profile. When he turned to meet Hannibal’s contemplation, clouds swam in his eyes, a ghost of the true stratosphere that existed behind those pupils. Despite being closer to fourty than thirty, he looked almost boyish, cherubile. Putting some fullness in his cheeks had done him the world of good, Hannibal mused. Although there was a certain appeal to gaunt, unkempt Will Graham – that same hollow-boned vulnerability he both ached to nurture and crush in the robin – he looked much more handsome like this. There was largely also the fact that Hannibal had made him so, and therefore a small amount of selfish pride swam alongside the love. He reasoned that the love a parent feels for his child is the same – an awe of one’s creation, an amalgamation of carefully selected influences and whatever wildcard the universe sees fit to play – yet it is the purest love of all.

Hannibal stroked Will’s forehead and smoothed his hair back gently. “You can devour me, Will Graham,” he said softly. “As long as I get my fill first, I couldn’t think of a finer ending for the two of us.”

Will squinted up at him, in what was, given the pale but bright light, either a smile or a confused frown. “When you talk about eating people, I never know if you’re being metaphorical or literal.”

“Nor do I. We’ll see when the time comes, won’t we?” he replied, gazing back over at the cedar, and saw that a stray tabby was perched atop the fence a yard or so away, watching the baby struggle. It was a boring turn of events, and he was suddenly aware that whether the bird lived or died, he’d be somewhat disappointed, dissatisfied.

He didn’t know why, and that bothered him.

“Let’s have coffee,” he said, deciding he didn’t want to watch.

Will, who saw the cogs whirring but pretending not to notice to save a whole lot of trouble, stood up and stretched, unable to contain the yawn that escaped him. “Good idea. As pleasant an experience as that was, I’m fond of familiar habits.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt fill for the lovely lovely Esther! I'd like to thank her for her never ending patience, love, and belief in me, because I have been struggling immensely and she was an angel while I spent months trying to squeeze this silly little story out of my head. I'm taking small prompts, but nothing big, due to brain stuff. Email me (ameliab193@gmail.com) or message me on tumblr (lavvendermenace.tumblr.com) :) Un-beta'd as always, so all mistakes are my fault (please point them out! my sensory processing is terrible and I suck at spelling)
> 
> Also, I wrote this before watching the season three final; the end dialogue seems eerily fitting!


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